Learning to stitch portraits ...

 

I love to take advantage of online courses & recently joined a 5 day stitch club portrait workshop. 

I have long admired stitched portraits but always find facial features to be difficult so I was keen to follow along & learn the techniques needed to produce something vaguely recognisable. 

A choice of threads - which skin tones are needed? 

The great grandparents large photo that my photo came from. 

I find this embroidery stand to be very useful for projects like this. 

We had to choose a photo that was about 6x8 inch large & I looked around & then my eye fell on to the one of the great grandparents. I had taken a photo of the framed image that hangs on my wall (the 4th generation to have it) and they seemed like the best option. 

I assumed that I know them because I have seen them daily for most of my life but looking carefully at the photo really gave me insight in to details like the colour of their eyes, their clothes, his watch chain & waistcoat, her brooch on her dress ... 

The technique is basically to trace an outline of the image - I scanned the photo for ease, then trace it on to paper or directly on to the fabrics.  A few months ago, I bought a flat bed light box cheaply off ebay - it uses a usb power supply & while it is not the most powerful light, it is adequate. 

I split the image in to the head / face / neck as one shape in neutral calico, then traced their clothing on to the fabric taking inspiration from the photo. 

I did Bernard as my workshop portrait but was conscious that they are very much a pair ... 

I was nervous about how to do the features but the sketchy stitch approach worked really well & I completed his outline in one afternoon alongside the workshop to my great surprise. It is done in single strand embroidery thread which gives it a lighter feel.  I am thrilled with his portrait. The rest of the week was adding in shading in various colours to reflect light & shadows & then finally working on the details on his clothing. I am surprised at the likeness & have been hesitant to do Catherina because I was not confident I would do her justice. 

However, after almost a month, I traced her on to fabrics, cut out the body & positioned it alongside him. I decided to give her a lacey top as a nod to her Dutch origins. From my painting, it appears that her eyes are a hazel colour (his was blue) so I added that. Her one eyebrow is slightly raised in a quizzical gesture that is very becoming. 

Looking at the pair of them, I think I have somehow managed to sew a slightly younger version of them - about a decade younger than their portrait & that is interesting because it would have been young love. He was a fairly recent German arrival,  she was Dutch & I loved this combination of heritage in a beloved maternal grandfather. Looking at his parents so closely has somehow connected me more deeply to them & it has been a very interesting new technique. 

I still have to finish the details on her, the fading light is not good for the fine details with single strand embroidery thread so I will come back to her. I kept the threads I used for the first portrait handy which means the two portraits will sit well together. I still need to add in more shading on her hair & face but I am pleased with her … 

Do you challenge your skills & learn new ones along the way? Tell all .... 

Thank you for stopping by, for sharing or leaving a comment, it is always appreciated. 

Dee 

A special travel journal ...

 As a life long educator, I love the habit of making notes of things that I might want to research or remember.  I always come back from trips with notes I want to add to. 

I have for at least a decade, kept travel journals of my many trips across Europe & Africa. It means you can easily find place names for photos or info you wanted to keep. 

I travel with a small pencil case & some paper clips to keep maps, tickets etc secure until I return home to complete the journal. It joins the others on my desk upstairs where only I am privy to the thoughts I jotted down.                   

I also have various pens including one with the 4 colours that you select, it is very useful en route. Sometimes I do little illustrations so I have a pencil too. The compact pink pencil case was a gift from the eldest daughter - made from reused sari's in India - a project that supports rural women. 

In 2022, I had 3 trips fairly close together (Transylvania, Holocaust, Africa)  so I decided to  use this red travel journal for the Holocaust trip. The trip was the Anne Frank & Oskar Schindler tour so I bought this postcard at Bergen Belsen as it is a permanent reminder of the trip.             

This past week I have been editing the blog posts & today I brought my travel journal down from my desk upstairs & opened it.  Memories came flooding back of the trip & the experiences we had at the many camps we visited. It is the first time I have re read parts of it since the trip & I am so glad that I put in maps, leaflets, entrance cards, details along the way. 

It is never a neat work because it is often written on the way, on a coach or at a hotel desk at night - snatched moments but they are capture the thoughts at that moment, how the experience touches you along the way. This is true too for trips to other places like Transylvania - it is capturing a moment to return to. 

 I took photos of some of the inserts from my travel journal which were important to some of the places we visited on the tour ... 

These were the maps & documents from the Sachsenhausen camp. It is a reminder how vast that camp was & how it is still being added to as a remembrance facility as they recover artefacts from the site. 

The notes from Bergen Belsen's excellent museum are very informative. I found this camp quite emotional - the sort that comes over you suddenly in the bleak forests knowing that each of the mounds is a mass burial ground, 

Krakow Ghetto & the influence of Oskar Schindler's factory on saving thousands by listing them on his books. The sites across beautiful Krakow remind one that they suffered such indignities & horror that we can not even imagine across a whole city. 

Terezin, previously known as Theresienstadt, was over several sites so it was useful to have the maps & names of the various sites to correct my blog entry. The pretty town was held up as a model town but the truth was just under the surface ... 

Wannsee - the conference where the Final Solution was signed off & where it became policy. The  importance of this conference  followed us across our tour …

This past week, with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau, I thought I really should blog my trip it so it is noted for the future. I spent several hours just working from the travel itinerary, keen to get it done. Time passed quickly & it ended up being in 7 parts. 

I hope they have been of interest to some of you

# 1 Following Anne Frank's Holocaust journey ... 

#2 Berlin's Holocaust journey ... 

#3 Krakow & Oskar Schindler's Holocaust journey ... 

#4 Operation Anthropoid & Reinhard Heydrich 

#5 Theresienstadt model town in the Holocaust 

#6 Auschwitz Birkenau & the Frank family 

#7 Nuremburg & some justice for the Holocaust 

I hope you are inspired to keep a log, a journal, a record however brief, of your trips too. 

Dee 

Visiting the British Ironwork centre

I love visiting new places & expanding my understanding of my county of Shropshire which borders Wales.  

I have passed the British Ironwork Centre dozens of times over the years as it is on our route to Wales from Shropshire. However, I have never pulled in because I have always been on the way elsewhere. 

Last night I saw that they were holding some free entry days this week & with dry weather forecast, that is where we went for an interesting morning. 

The sculptures / ironwork is original & imposing from small to huge ones.

  

The animals displayed as 'extinct' are interesting & recognisable as true likeness.   

      

The large displays are really huge & can be seen in their elevated spaces. 

     

They reuse metal & waste metal which is good for the environment. 

    
 

    

A map of the generous site with its many groups of ironwork figures & creatures.  

The Knife Angel had toured around several towns since it was made. 

I saw it in our town centre a few years ago. 

It was returned to this space earlier this week & it now stands proudly again.

It was made from 100 000 knives that were seized or handed in & made safe in this sculpture. 

The size is impressive & if you look carefully you can see the knife handles & blades, the wings a juxtaposition against the blades. 

It is encouraging that so many metal parts are reused in original ways & it is an interesting visit across this generous space. 

    

  This was the ladies loo, complete with a Jurassic Park type visitor ...

Thank you for stopping by, do you have a favourite sculpture? 

Dee 

#7 Nuremburg & some justice for the Holocaust ...

After the realities of our 12 days in the footsteps of Anne Frank & Oskar Schindler, it was only fitting that our tour should end in the German town of Nuremburg - synonymous with justice. 

This is my travel journal I used on the trip - a postcard of Anne & Margot Franks memorial at Bergen Belsen on the cover, a black ribbon to tie it all together. 

I always collect info along the way because it is  too much to take in & you can always return to it again ... 

Driving in to the town was lovely & I wondered to myself why this town was chosen to bring justice to those who wrought such brutality upon those effected by the Holocaust. we chatted amongst ourselves, expressing our hopes for this final stop on our tour; would it give us clarity & closure about the horrific camps we had visited & the monsters who ran them with unbridled brutality? 

However, we first stopped at the spot in Nuremburg where those enormous rally's were held . 

We climbed up the iconic steep concrete blocks to look out over the space where hundreds of thousands gathered to chant & obey, it was clear that this was coming full circle.

From the great height, the speakers (I am not giving names to monsters) would have been tiny figures with loud amplification, whipping up anti Jewish sentiment, the images & recordings online. The elaborate facades are gone but the imposing structure remains, still as intimidating as it was then. 

The scale of the rallies held here were absolutely staggering from the images on the notice board. The elaborate cladding on the podium is gone but it is a huge way to clamber up & look out on to where thousands would have gathered. Part of the field in front is now a park but it is sobering to be in a spot you know from history. 

  

 

 

The traditional town of Nuremburg in its Autumn colours against blue skies - one would scarcely know that this place was chosen to exact justice after WW2 & its name has become synonymous with justice since then. 

The etched window shows the now gone building next door that housed the monstrous prisoners during the trial & where some escaped justice by taking their own lives, 

Images of Court room 600 in the Nuremburg Palace of Justice scenes were shown  on the numerous electronic boards around the museum, the faces of those who were responsible for the unimaginable horror of the war. 

The Trials at Nuremburg were for Crimes against Humanity by Governments against their own people. 

The SS camp leaders & others were incarcerated & tried by an international court. 

The court was in session so we could unfortunately not visit the actual courtroom but spent several hours in the excellent multi-storey museum next door, the realities of the trial well set out & original recordings taking you through the complexities of the trial. 

After several hours, we made our way back out in to the pretty  tree lined streets where not a hint remains of the dark past. 

The courthouse in The Palace of Justice next door was in session so we could not visit it. 

The impressive honey coloured buildings a testament to justice being seen to be done, a purpose it still holds today. 

However, I left feeling not enough had been held to account for the monstrous deeds we had borne witness to across our tour. 

  

My abiding thought as I settled in to my comfortable coach seat for the return journey across Germany then onwards home the following day was that justice was not served to all those thousands involved in this awful period of time. 

Some of those responsible took their own life, others escaped to Spain then onto South America with passports of convenience & some just went back home again to ruined cities. I think we all want to see justice done. 

I came away with some understanding of the complexities of this time in history, I have read dozens of accounts of the war, my interest being in human behaviour & in the Holocaust.  The who, why, where, what, when of this awful time, trying to understand how people can be turned so easily against their neighbours ... 

A close DNA match to my German great grandfathers line that I was hoping would have information to add to his tree that is my brick wall, confided - 'I cannot help you, that side all perished in the camps, we know as much as you do ...' so perhaps it is a deep seated ancestral connection that connects me to this period of history. 

While at Auschwitz Birkenau, I wore two badges pinned to my dark blouse - one was the pin from the Holocaust Memorial Trust they had sent me when I requested information for my students . I backed it on to a hand felted circle 

The second was a Shoah survivors pin I had bought with the imagery of barbed wire, a leaf & a dove. I added stitching to symbolise barbed wire & attached it to red felt with a pin. One brooch for the dead, one for those who survived.  They visited the many Holocaust camps with me ... 

I wrote the last of my Holocaust diary entries on the way home to England, thankful to have the time to arrange my thoughts while it was clear in my mind, to make sense of all I had seen & experienced. 

     

Thank you for taking time to read even part of this journey,  give thanks for peace & blessings, 

Dee